India’s Free Speech Crisis Deepens: 329

 Violations in 4 Months

Sabrang India | 06 May 2025

• 
  
• 
  

From murdered journalists to banned films, the first quarter of 2025 marks a disturbing escalation in censorship, intimidation, and law fare—highlighted by the Free Speech Collective's latest findings.

The first four months of 2025 have delivered a sobering verdict on the state of free speech and press freedom in India. From targeted killings of journalists to government-imposed censorship, retaliatory criminal cases, and the choking of digital media spaces, attacks on the fundamental right to freedom of expression have intensified at an alarming rate. The Free Speech Collective (FSC), which tracks violations across the country, recorded a staggering 329 incidents of free speech suppression between January and April alone—underscoring a pattern of rising repression.

Silencing the Messengers: A deadly environment for journalists

Two journalists were killed in the first quarter of the year—Mukesh Chandrakar and Raghvendra Bajpai—while four others were physically attacked. At least six were arrested, and five faced threats and harassment, according to FSC’s tracker. These incidents reflect not just isolated acts of violence, but a broader, systematic effort to target those who challenge the status quo.

The year began with the horrifying disappearance and murder of Mukesh Chandrakar, an independent journalist who ran the YouTube channel Bastar Junction in Chhattisgarh. He was found dead three days later, stuffed into a septic tank at the home of Suresh Chandrakar, a road contractor and relative who was reportedly enraged over Mukesh’s role in a report broadcast by NDTV on poor road conditions in Bastar. The autopsy confirmed he had been brutally beaten with a heavy object. Police acted only after sustained pressure from local journalists, eventually arresting the accused near Hyderabad. Mukesh’s death starkly illustrates the hazards faced by journalists reporting from India’s hinterlands, where entrenched corruption, state apathy, and local power nexuses operate with impunity.

Three other journalists continue to remain behind bars as of May 2025. These include Rupesh Kumar Singh from Jharkhand and Irfan Mehraj from Kashmir—both incarcerated under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)—and Maharashtra-based YouTuber Tushar Kharat, arrested on criminal defamation charges. Mehraj, a well-known journalist and researcher, was detained in March 2023 in a case related to alleged terror funding. Singh was taken into custody in April 2022 on accusations of aiding Maoist groups. Kharat, who runs the Marathi YouTube channel Lay Bhari, was arrested in March 2025 for allegedly defaming Maharashtra Rural Development Minister Jayakumar Gore. All three have been denied bail.

In another shocking case, at dawn on March 12, Telangana police arrested Pogadadanda Revathi, Managing Director of Pulse News, and reporter Thanvi Yadav in Hyderabad for broadcasting supposedly “abusive” content about Chief Minister Revanth Reddy. A third individual, a social media user with the handle NippuKodi, was also detained for sharing the video. The trio secured bail on March 17, following public outrage.

Meanwhile, in Assam, journalist Dilwar Hussain Mozumder from The CrossCurrent was arrested on March 25 for reporting on protests concerning financial irregularities in the Assam Co-operative Apex Bank. Notably, the bank’s Board includes Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and BJP MLA Biswajit Phukan. Although released on bail a day later, Mozumder was immediately re-arrested in another case and only freed on March 29.

What links all these cases is the journalists’ association with independent digital platforms, particularly YouTube channels—signalling not only the increasing relevance of digital news spaces, but also the lack of institutional recognition and protection for those operating outside mainstream media networks. The chief ministers of the respective states—Sarma (Assam), Fadnavis (Maharashtra), and Reddy (Telangana)—have consistently denied suppressing press freedom. Sarma falsely claimed on X that no journalist had been arrested in recent times, Fadnavis accused Kharat of extortion, and Reddy outrageously called for “so-called journalists” to be stripped and beaten in public during an Assembly address.

Economic reprisal and legal harassment

The state’s hostility extended to the financial backbone of independent journalism. Two well-known investigative platforms—The Reporter’s Collective and Kannada news website The File—had their non-profit status revoked by the Income Tax Department, effectively paralysing their operations. Officials argued their journalism did not serve “public purpose,” a claim strongly refuted by the affected organisations. The Reporter’s Collective described the move as a grave setback to public interest journalism. Editors at The File maintained they operated an ad-free platform and rejected the government’s claim that it was a commercial venture.

These actions reflect a broader tactic known as ‘law fare’—the strategic weaponisation of legal and bureaucratic tools to undermine media freedom. FSC recorded at least five such cases filed against journalists during this period, cementing the notion that legal intimidation is now a key instrument of censorship.

Digital clampdown and regulatory overreach

The Pahalgam terror attack, which resulted in the deaths of 26 civilians, triggered yet another crackdown on digital media. Journalists and commentators who raised valid questions about intelligence failures and security lapses found themselves targeted. Two YouTube news channels—Knocking News and 4PM News—were abruptly blocked, with the latter being accused of jeopardising national security.

Simultaneously, legislative threats to press freedom continued to mount. The Maharashtra government persisted with efforts to enact the controversial Maharashtra Public Security Bill, which proposes sweeping powers to curb undefined ‘unlawful activities’. Despite strong objections from more than a dozen journalist and civil society organisations, the bill is being pushed through. Critics argue its vague and expansive provisions are open to misuse and could criminalise legitimate journalistic work.

A wider assault on free expression

FSC’s documentation shows that attacks on free speech extend far beyond the press. Of the 329 violations tracked in the first four months of 2025, a massive 283 involved censorship of not just journalists, but academics, students, artists, comedians, and filmmakers. Among those targeted were satirists and social media commentators such as Neha Singh Rathore, Dr Madri Kakoti (aka Dr Medusa), Shamita Yadav (aka the ranting gola), and comedian Kunal Kamra—most of whom were booked under draconian sections of the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

Film censorship also saw an aggressive spike. Scenes from Empuraan and Phule were slashed just before or after their release, making a mockery of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) process. The situation worsened with multiple cuts ordered for Punjab 95, the denial of CBFC certification for award-winning films like Santosh, and heavy-handed censorship of foreign films on OTT platforms. The backlash culminated in violent incidents, including mob violence after a screening of Chhava in Nagpur and an attack on Dalit journalist Sanjay Ambedkar while recording public reactions to Phule in Prayagraj.

Pushback and the fight to reclaim rights

Despite the wave of intimidation, there have been determined efforts to resist. Journalists’ unions, civil liberties groups, digital rights advocates, and independent media organisations have raised their voices against these encroachments. Their interventions have kept the conversation on free speech alive and forced public attention onto the state’s shrinking tolerance for dissent.

The constitutionally enshrined right to freedom of speech and expression—Article 19(1)(a)—has come under sustained attack in recent times. The first few months of 2025 are a chilling reminder that India’s democratic fabric is fraying under the weight of censorship, intimidation, and state-sanctioned repression. But the fight to reclaim these rights continues, powered by the courage of independent journalists, artists, and citizens who refuse to be silenced.

Courtesy: Sabrang India

 INDIA

The Courage of Gulfisha Fatima’s Writings

Pratiksha Baxi | 06 May 2025

• 
  

• 
  

Gulifisha’s continued imprisonment and her poetry on the unjusts of pre-trial detention showcase the masculinist carceral culture of the Indian State.

Women Prisoners embody the law’s hallucinations as these cut deep into their bodies and souls year after time in captivity. Gulfisha Fatima defies these hallucinations of the law through her verses, by providing a language to capture the suffering inflicted on pre-trial prisoners, as they wait for their trials to begin and languish in prisons for years. Now in prison for five years, as the bail hearings in the Delhi High Court continue unfold over three years, Gulfisha’s extraordinarily powerful poetry beckons us to bear witness as also to imbibe her courage. Gulfisha gives each one of us courage to speak truth to power.

She writes searingly about the deep ethical loneliness in the long night of imprisonment when the pain in her heart just does not stop, not once: Dil hai Ki Dukhta Hi Chala Jata Hai. The prisoner poet finds courage in the hope that ‘perhaps (I) might reach home, before the light of the lamp (diya) goes out’. 

Poetry in captivity insistently reminds law of its lost quest for humanity. Doing time in prison, waiting for a trial, is arbitrary. It dissolves, it divides, it captures, it seeks to destroy the self. 

In prison it feels like she has to climb time and ‘days become like a ladder’ . In her poem titled ‘Forgetting’, Gulfisha describes the force of law in these words by recalling how she would learn everything by heart for the history exam but she would forget the dates. And now, she writes ‘I forget now almost everything but remember only the dates.’ For biography and history disappears in face of court dates and numbers of hearings. The court dates inscribe themselves, forcing forgetting, reducing human beings to files and dates. Surely, endless and devastating custodial waiting is one of the most cruel forms of pre-trial punishment. 

Doing time in prison, waiting for a trial, is arbitrary. It dissolves, it divides, it captures, it seeks to destroy the self. 

Incarcerated for fighting for democracy, civil liberties and inclusive politics, the poetry of political prisoners provides us the language for understanding the injustice of pre-trial detention. Poets often do what law reformers cannot. And poets speak to each other through histories of incarceration, separated through times and jurisdictions.

In one of her poems, Gulfisha Fatima asks Faiz – what the difference between their experiences of waiting in prison might be? She answers, the difference is not history or jurisdiction but the appointed divine time, ‘waqt-e-mu'ayyan’? She confides in Faiz, ‘The silent clouds too have nothing to say, When I ask them, “how many seasons like this?”, “how many seasons like this?”’ 

The weight of each court date in a bail hearing is a calendar of enhancing seasons of incarceration that deepen the maddening yearning for seasons of life and liberty.  As time passes, the existential truth of the appointed divine time becomes the only difference between political prisoners enjoined through different histories of state repression. Today, it is from Gulfisha’s writings that we find the courage to demand that law’s quest towards humanity be restored, conserved and expanded.  This means demanding that extraordinary laws, such as the UAPA, which breed impunity, must be subject to stricter constitutional standards and safeguards, for it incorporates persecution as law’s policy, both as a doctrine and practice, under the sign of security. 

The devastating impact of judicial custody on women is well documented. Yet such reports such as the Report of the National Expert Committee on Women Prisoners (1987) authored by Justice Krishna Iyer, CP Sujaya (Joint Secretary, Department of Women and Child Development), advocate Shyamalal Pappu, Sanobar Sekhar (TISS, Mumbai), L.J. Arora (Addl IG Prisons, Lucknow), Dr Suddha B Kaladate (Sociologist, Marathwada University), Kumkum Chadda (TOI) and Sheela Barse, are now mostly forgotten by courts and the public. In fact, Justice Iyer begins by reminding courts and public to “remember, undertrials languish even for years in prisons and days in police custody. In law, you are then presumed innocent, in life that is the worst laceration. The whole process is contrary to decency, dignity and humanity” (p. 41). This insistent reminder to remember, as we find in the poetry of the incarcerated, is a call to re-count the legal and cultural histories of women in prisons. 

And when we encounter the introduction by Justice Krishna Iyer in this two volume report on women prisoners, we are reminded of the duty to renounce practices derogatory to women as the basis for governments, courts and citizens to ensure that women are not locked up in police stations or prisons at all. Justice Iyer recommended that other than in the rarest of rare cases, ‘women need not be arrested at all’ (emphasis in original, p 57). The Expert Committee found that in overwhelming cases women do not abscond or disregard summons for court hearings. The Committee had found scores of women in prison, in deplorable conditions, on illegal grounds – often for moral, or political reasons. For example, Justice Iyer was shocked by the imprisonment of several adult rape victims on the ground that they might be required as witnesses at a future date in trials -  what he called a form of illegal ‘confessional detention’. Further, Justice Krishna Iyer insisted that if a lone woman was locked up in an all-male jail, this would amount to solitary detention.

Even in ‘exceptional cases’, the Justice Iyer Committee recommended that special reasons be recorded for arrest and remand, upon which the woman “may be given the option to go home after executing a bond of her own with a condition that she will report before a probation officer of a women’s police station” (p. 59). In case of detention, women should be allowed to meet their families with a “weekend leave system” (p. 59). This recommendation provides a jurisprudential basis for interrogating exceptional laws such as the UAPA, which put an embargo on bail, and suggest methods of ensuring that women’s personhood and dignity is preserved while they wait for their trials to be completed. Anything less than this, is derogatory to all women. For the personhood and dignity of women is an ‘inviolable’ value, and women are entitled to ‘special treatment’ as guaranteed by the constitutional order (p. 57). 

Written after the Mathura Open Letter and bearing the imprint of the women’s movement, the National Expert Committee on Women Prisoners report would grieve today for having failed women undertrials.

Written after the Mathura Open Letter and bearing the imprint of the women’s movement, the National Expert Committee on Women Prisoners report would grieve today for having failed women undertrials. It would lament that our courts and legislators ignored this groundwork for a jurisprudence of what might be called an early gender specific ‘abolitionist’ perspective. The Committee would be stunned that today women who participate in social movements, especially Muslim women, farmers, activists, journalists and students, are increasingly treated as criminals, only for  raising their voices as citizens – and as women. 

Is this penal policy of the state not derogatory to all women? Really speaking, why must we, as citizens, tolerate the expansion and even celebration of cruel forms of pre-trial detention and masculinist carceral cultures of the state? 

Pratiksha Baxi is an Indian sociologist and feminist legal scholar.

Courtesy: The Leaflet

INDIA

Assam: ‘Left-Behind’ Women Wage Lonely, Futile Battle Against Extreme Floods

Maitreyee Boruah | 06 May 2025

Scarce livelihood options drive men to migrate, leaving impoverished and vulnerable women to bear the brunt of frequent floods exacerbated by climate change.


Women and children tend to stay behind in flood-prone villages as migrating with their husbands is too expensive (Photo - Maitreyee Boruah, 101Reporters)


Sonitpur, Assam: “Izazul… Izazul…,” Muklesa Parveen (22) called out for her husband as she saw the flood water seeping into her one-room hut on the night of July 2, 2024, in Assam’s Bihagaon chapori.

She lay on a wooden bed, nursing her infant, panic rising with the floodwaters as the power went out, plunging everything into darkness. But her husband was over 3,500 kilometres away in Tamil Nadu for work.

She kept calling for help, clutching her daughter close as the water steadily filled her hut. It was nearly an hour before neighbours heard her cries and came to help her evacuate.

“The water rose three feet above the ground. One wall of my hut collapsed under the heavy rain and strong winds. Our farmlands were inundated, our crops destroyed," Parveen told 101Reporters in March 2025.

“But this is normal for us,” she added in the same breath.

“We witness at least one flood every year, sometimes even three… Our homes and fields are destroyed, and we move to a temporary location… Once the water subsides, we come back and rebuild our lives from scratch. I have suffered worse floods,” she said.

Parveen and the roughly 1,000 residents of Bihagaon Chapori live along the flood-prone silt-laden riverbanks, or chapori, of Jia Bharali, one of the major tributaries of the Brahmaputra river. The village is about 25 kilometres from Tezpur — the cultural capital of Assam — and is accessible via a narrow, sandy road that becomes especially challenging during monsoon.

Like neighbouring villages, Bihagaon Chapori survives at the mercy of the river.

One of the most flood-prone states in India, Assam, regularly faces severe flooding in the Brahmaputra and Barak river plains. Much of the flooding impacts the char and chapori regions. Chars are temporary river islands, while chaporis are silt-laden banks/floodplains, both highly vulnerable to erosion and flooding.

With floods destroying crops and homes each year, and few jobs available locally, most men are forced to migrate.



Muklesa Parveen with her daughter outside their hut in Assam's Bihagaon Chapori. Parveen's house was destroyed during last year's floods, which she rebuilt a few months ago.

Missing men

Farmer Akram Hussain (56) of Bihagaon Chapori explained, “In at least half of the households in our village, adult men between 22-48 years work as informal labourers in urban areas. Only old and infirm men are left behind. Most men will migrate sometime or other when need arises.”

While no macro-level data exists on migration from char and chapori areas, field visits provide a clearer picture of the ground reality.

When this reporter visited Bihagaon Chapori in March, she interacted with the residents of at least 25 of the village’s 170 households, clustered within a 300-metre radius. In 18 of them, adult men were away, working as informal labourers outside Assam.

In Number 4 Sialmari and neighbouring Bagaribari—two char villages in Darrang district—locals said nearly every household has at least one male member who has migrated for work.

"Otherwise, where are the jobs here? These men are either illiterate or school dropouts. They know how to till the land and grow rice and vegetables. However, rains, floods, and the constant shifting of the Brahmaputra often destroy their agricultural produce. As a result, they seek employment in cities as daily wage labourers. Currently, Kerala is the most preferred destination for villagers," said Haider Ali (34), Gaon Bura or the village headman of Bagaribari.

Both villages, with about 100 households and 1,500 residents each, lie deep in the riverine terrain.

This reporter reached Dalgaon, the nearest town, after a 90-kilometre drive from Guwahati, followed by a motorbike ride through narrow, sandy tracks. Bagaribari, situated across the Dhansiri river, required a stretch on foot and crossing a precarious bamboo bridge—the only access point, often submerged or destroyed during floods.
Woman vs nature

In this precarious geography, women are left behind to manage households, farmland, livestock, and care for the elderly and children, all while living under the looming threat of the next flood.

Parveen’s husband sends her part of his Rs 15,000 income from Tamil Nadu, but it isn’t enough, since he also supports his mother, who lives separately.

To make ends meet, Parveen manages a small farm, where she grows brinjal, cabbage, cauliflower, and maize, and works as a labourer in nearby Makua Chapori while raising her toddler alone. Her earnings never exceed Rs 1,500 per month.

“Sometimes, I feel it’s pointless for him to work so far away,” she said, “but at least it’s a stable job—unlike farming here, always at risk from floods.”

Just a kilometre away, Musfiya Begum (38) shares a similar struggle against “prokritir pagalami” or the whims of nature, as she said.

Her husband, now remarried, abandoned her and their two sons. A daily wage labourer, she’s rebuilt her flood-ravaged hut five times in the past decade on an income of Rs 200 per day.

Bagaribari’s Sanu Begum (30) also shares how she has been managing her home and three children alone since floods damaged their land last July, and her husband migrated to Kerala for work. He manages to earn about Rs 20,000 per month.

“This is the story of almost every woman here,” she said.

Women tend to stay behind in flood-prone villages as migrating with their husbands is too expensive and leaves no one to manage the home, land, and family.

Sabeni Beya (67) from Number 4 Sialmari said she has grown used to floods damaging her home each year. “When the water rises, we climb a ghat—an elevated bamboo platform—and stay there for five or six days with little food and water, waiting for the flood to end. Even at this age, I will do the same when the flood water arrives again,” Beya said.
The worsening climate emergency

“While floods and erosion are natural in river systems like the Brahmaputra, the climate crisis has intensified these events,” Director of Research and Development at the Centre for Environment and Climate Action Foundation in Guwahati, Kamal Kumar Tanti, said.

“We are experiencing not just the usual seasonal flooding but also an increase in the intensity, frequency, and unpredictability of natural disasters,” he added.

Flood mapping data shows that between 1977 and 2015, flood frequency in the Kopili river basin—one of the Brahmaputra’s most flood-prone areas—has increased two-fold, especially since 2007.

In 1977, one flood was recorded; in 2015, there were 10. The highest was 21 in 2010.

Experts say floods now arrive faster and hit harder.

According to Assam's Water Resources Department, the state faced major floods in the years 1972, 1974, 1978, 1983, 1988, 2000, 2004, and 2012.

But in recent years—2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2024—Assam has been hit by flash floods almost every year, along with prolonged periods of waterlogging. These flash floods happen due to the rivers flowing down from the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.

According to Tanti, these climate extremes are driven by erratic rainfall, rising temperatures, and accelerated glacial melt, and subsequent glacial lake outbursts, complicated by increased erosion in riverine areas. More frequent and intense rainfall can lead to greater erosion and higher amounts of sediment entering water bodies like rivers and lakes.

“Although these regions have always been dynamic, the climate crisis has transformed a natural rhythm into a destructive and erratic onslaught, pushing communities beyond their capacity to cope. It is a clear manifestation of the impacts of climate change hitting the most vulnerable populations first and hardest,” Tanti said.

A humanitarian crisis, unfolding across decades and distances

According to the Water Resources Department, 3.105 million hectares—about 39.58% of Assam's total area—are flood-prone, accounting for 9.40% of India’s total flood-prone land.

Every year, around hundreds become homeless due to floods in the state. Additionally, Assam faces an annual loss of Rs 200 crore from devastating floods, with nearly 40% of the state's land classified as flood-prone by the government.

Notably, from 1953 to 2005, there has been a fluctuation in the flood-affected areas, according to the Flood Hazard Atlas for Assam (2016).

In 1953, 2.29 million hectares were affected. This rose sharply in the early 2000s, peaking at 8.03 million hectares in 2004, before dropping to 3.38 million hectares in 2005.

In a memorandum to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Assam Government reported that floods from April to October 2022 claimed around 200 lives, impacted nearly 35 districts and 8.9 million people, and destroyed crops across 246,000 hectares.

The Flood Hazard Atlas further shows a sharp rise in flood impact between 1953 and 2005. Flood deaths rose from 37 in 1953 to 1,503 in 2005, with the highest toll in 1977 at 11,316 lives. Crop damage increased from 0.93 million hectares in 1953 to 2.24 million hectares in 2005.


Salema Khatun, 53, from Bihagaon Chapori in Sonitpur district, Assam, cooks a meal at her workplace in Tezpur(Photo - Maitreyee Boruah, 101Reporters)

Suspended in a vicious cycle

The constant flooding also results in land shifts in the char and chapori villages in the Brahmaputra basin.

They often disappear entirely.

In South Salmara-Mankachar district alone, at least 132 villages have been wiped out by floods and erosion, said Hafiz Ahmed, a Guwahati-based poet, originally from the riverine region.

“Nearly two million people from riverine regions have been internally displaced because of river erosion in Assam. When a village is destroyed, the residents seek refuge in another char or chapori, often travelling several kilometres in search of new habitable spots,” he added.

“Many, left homeless by floods, migrate to cities and live in slums, while most go back to the familiar char or chapori region because of no other option. They rebuild despite knowing the risks,” he added. “The cycle continues.”

When floods hit, families climb onto the ghats—seven or eight feet above ground—and wait for the flood to pass. They are suspended like this for days, unaware of who or what has survived the raging waters below.

They don’t wait for government help, which often arrives too little and too late.

“This has always been the case here,” Salema Khatun (53) from Bihagaon Chapori said, recalling the July 2007 floods. “The entire village fled, fearing for their lives, and sought shelter along the roads near Tezpur town, around 25 km away,” she added.

“It was only after a few days that the government provided shelter for the women and children in a school. We were given rice, pulses, oil, salt, and kerosene stoves to cook with, but staying there was extremely difficult.”

“There were no toilets and bathing facilities, and the water provided was dirty and unfit for drinking. There was no privacy. We stayed for a month until the water receded, then returned alone to our flood-ravaged village,” Khatun said.

Nawahar Ali, a teacher from Number 4 Sialmari village in Darrang district, said that ideally, villagers should be evacuated during floods, but this rarely happens.

"Moreover, villagers also don't leave their homes thinking they might lose whatever little they have, and it is better to stay in the village and save as much as possible," he added.
Active climate-resilient policies and action

According to Syed Tahidur Rahman, Director of the Minority Affairs and Char Areas Development Department in Assam, the government issues a high alert when a flood is about to hit a region. Alerts are sent via SMS by the Assam State Disaster Management Authority, and official notices are shared with grassroots-level officials to inform communities about the impending floods.

“This usually happens 24 to 48 hours in advance or as soon as we receive information from the India Meteorological Department,” he said.

However, Rahman acknowledged that due to the “precarious geographical conditions of the riverine areas, it is not always easy to reach these communities when floods and erosion occur.”

In these remote villages, flood alerts rarely reach women like Parveen, who must scramble to protect their children and belongings against the rising water. It’s only when the waters enter the courtyard of their homes that they realise that it is time for them to move, the women said.

Experts say that government intervention to combat climate extremes typically includes disaster relief, embankment construction and repairs, some relocation efforts, and flood forecasting.

According to the Director of Research and Development at the Centre for Environment and Climate Action Foundation in Guwahati, Kamal Kumar Tanti, “The current efforts are simply not keeping pace with the escalating climate crisis in the char and chapori regions.”

"We need a paradigm shift from reactive disaster management to proactive, climate-just adaptation and resilience building. This approach must fully integrate community participation and address the underlying vulnerabilities while also demanding stronger global action on emission reductions,” he said.

The climate scientist further said that enhanced early warning systems and evacuation infrastructure, like building multi-purpose raised platforms or flood shelters, are also critical to combat the climate extremes.

At the local level, Tanti said there is a need for community-led adaptation planning and climate-resilient agriculture. "This includes promoting flood-resistant crops, employing floating agriculture techniques, and diversifying crops,” he said.

“Additionally, investing in ecological restoration—such as wetland conservation and strategic afforestation using appropriate native species—is essential,” Tanti added.
Arrested development

Floods in the char and chapori regions have long hindered development activities, leaving communities trapped in a cycle of vulnerability. The recurring devastation prevents any meaningful progress.

A look at the population matrix of these regions shows that the already-vulnerable Miya Muslim community — estimated at around 1.8 million — forms the majority in these areas. Other communities, including Mishing, Deori, Sonowal, Kochari, Nepali, and Bengali Hindus, also reside here.

"These areas face extreme poverty, high illiteracy, and poor healthcare," said Ahmed.

In response, officials said development efforts are underway.

“We are focusing on building infrastructure — schools, toilets, hospitals — and providing agricultural support and solar panels to help these communities adapt,” said Syed Tahidur Rahman.

When asked whether these structures are at risk of being washed away during floods, Rahman said efforts are made to make them as flood-resilient as possible. “Building this infrastructure is important—it helps improve the quality of life for people in these vulnerable areas,” he added.

The government should also focus on skill development, including providing training and support for alternative, non-farm livelihoods that are less vulnerable to climate impacts, Tanti said.

“Until that happens,” Abdul Mazid (51), a former boatman and community leader from Bihagaon Chapori, said, “men will continue to migrate and women will continue to be the martyrs of climate disasters.”

Maitreyee Boruah is a freelance journalist and a member of 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Is an All-India Plan Underway to Foment Communal Conflicts?

Subhash Gatade | 07 May 2025

President Rajendra Prasad had written to Sardar Patel, flagging cases of Hindutva activists dressing as Muslims to foment communal trouble. That trend continues.

"...I am told Hindutva activists have a plan of creating trouble. They have got a number of them dressed as Muslims and looking like Muslims who are to create trouble with the Hindus by attacking them.. ...The result of this kind of trouble amongst the Hindus and Muslims will be to create a conflagration.’’

[Extracts of a letter, written by Dr Rajendra Prasad on March 14, 1948, cited in Nehru-Patel: Agreement within Differences, Select Documents and Correspondence, edited by Neerja Singh, Page 43]

'How Hindutva activists plan to foment communal trouble?'

It was the year 1948 and Dr Rajendra Prasad, who later became the first President of India, wrote a letter to the first Home Minister of independent India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, about the plan of Hindutva activists to foment trouble in the newly independent country. As per reports that he had received from different sources, Prasad wrote how these Hindutva supremacists get dressed up as Muslims and 'looking like Muslims' create trouble with Hindus by attacking them.'

Much time has passed since the time letter was written, but every now and then, this template, created and developed by Hindutva Supremacist formations during the Partition violence and later, is active with the aim to communalise and polarise the society further.

As the nation is trying to come to grips with post- Pahalgam terrorist attack fallout, which witnessed killing of 26 innocent tourists, reports are coming from different parts of the country that mischievous forces have become active to foment trouble at the ground level against sections of Indian society itself.

The recent arrest of the duo, Chandan Malakar (30) and Progyajit Mondal (45), active members of a political party and associated with a fringe outfit called Sanatani Ekta Manch, for putting a Pakistani flag in the toilet of the Akbarpur railway station near North Parganas is a case in point. No doubt it was part of a conspiracy hatched with the intention of fomenting communal divide in Bengal.

As they have confessed to the police, the duo had plans to write Hindustan Murdabad and Pakistan Zindabad near the posters which they pasted in the toilet of Akbarpur station and had expected to create a riot-like situation.

With the perpetrators of this criminal act behind bars, it is hoped that serious action will be taken against them. Apart from charging them with the act of treason and other penal provisions, the Bengal Police will hopefully spare no efforts to reach the masterminds of this operation. It would be height of political naivete if one thinks that the duo were acting on their own, some great planning must have gone behind this operation and some key leader of the Hindutva brigade would be handling this operation.

The idea is to precipitate division in the Indian society on the basis of religion, when the nation is trying to focus itself on the terrorist killings of innocent tourists at the behest of Pakistan and is keen to 'teach it a lesson of the lifetime'. (This article was written before Operation Sindoor)

The large-scale conspiracy behind this incident cannot be brushed away easily. Looking at the fact that such incidents are not one-off and similar reports have appeared in national and regional dailies, especially from Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states, we will have to remain extra vigilant.

Look at this report from Rishikesh (Uttarakhand) where Pakistani flags suddenly appeared on the streets at night and there was a large gathering of protesters against this provocative action where a police officer himself declared that "[P]akistani flags were brought by some protesters only."

Police officer Sandeep Negi revealed that the Pakistani flags were brought by some protesters. They had brought these flags to protest against the Pahalgam terror attack and expressed their anger through those, he said. "Initially, it appeared that the flags were brought to the road by some unidentified person. But later during investigation it surfaced that the flags were targeted by some locals who had protested against the terror attack," he further added...

This report from Kalaburgi, Karnataka, is no less disturbing which tells how '[s]ix Bajrang Dal activists detained for pasting Pakistan flag stickers condemning terror. '

Tensions flared in Kalaburgi on Friday morning after stickers bearing the image of the Pakistan flag were found pasted on roads at multiple junctions, including Jagat Circle and Saath Gumbad. The act, initially attributed to miscreants, was later claimed by members of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu nationalist organisation, as a protest against the recent terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir.

Vadodara in Gujarat witnessed a similar incident few days ago, when Pakistan’s flags pasted on Vadodara Road created a furore in the area. As per the reports,

..Unknown persons had put up Pakistani flag posters on the main public road near Shri Wagheshwari Society, Chandravati Society, and near Karelibaug in the Karelibaug area of Vadodara city. When people learned about this incident, crowds gathered around the area.

Browse the internet or check the next Insta feed and you will be reminded about similar reports from Santa Cruz, Canacona (Goa), etc. which witnessed the use of similar tactics.

No doubt, the above-mentioned reports are a random selection of news and the actual number of incidents, where use of Pakistani flag to create disturbance, might be very large.

What prompted the fanatic elements, basically ideological legatees of the formations who want India to usher into Hindu Rashtra, suddenly resort to the template developed during Partition riots and later?

The fact of the matter is that despite the killings of 26 tourists in Pahalgam by jihadi terrorists, there has not been a spurt in anti-Muslim feelings at the all-India level. Many of the victims of the tragedy, family members of the people killed in the terrorist attack or wives/ daughters of those who were killed, have shared their experiences about the treatment they received at the hands of ordinary Kashmiris or how people risked their own lives to save them, how they sheltered them etc. etc.

Many of these victims themselves have issued public statements appealing to the people to differentiate between terrorists and Kashmiris and Muslims and appealed to people that they should not try to do Hindu- Muslim politics at this juncture.

Perturbed over these statements, the Hindutva trolls have resorted to character assassination of these brave women.

The silence of the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet over the trolling of these Army/Navy wives -- whose husbands were killed in the terrorist attack – is, to say the least, mind numbing.

There is reason to believe that this absence of widespread outrage against religious minorities, especially Muslims - -whom Golwalkar, the second supremo of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS, used to consider 'internal enemies' -- has prompted these copycat attempts to create communal-riot like situations.

What is worrying that this will not be the first attempt made by elements to precipitate internecine violence.

There are instances galore on how these elements have resorted to similar tactics to create communal riots earlier as well.

Just three ago, the promptness of the Ayodhya police helped nab a group of terrorists who were keen to create a communal riot-like situation in Ayodhya itself, when Eid was approaching. Eleven people from Ayodhya – who were apparently members of one ‘Hindu Yodha Sangathan’ – reportedly tried throwing prohibited meat, torn pages of a holy book and posters with objectionable slogans before mosques and shrines of Gulab Shah Baba.

The CCTV footage from near these mosques – Taatshah Jama Masjid, Masjid Ghosiyana and Kashmiri Mohalla Masjid – when the conspiracy was executed at midnight, also shows that these accused were wearing caps used by Muslims, basically to hoodwink the police and criminalise and stigmatise the community further.

Most of the accused, namely, Mahesh Kumar Mishra, Pratyush Srivastava, Nitin Kumar, Deepak Kumar Gaur alias Gunjan, Brijesh Pandey, Shatrughan Prajapati, and Vimal Pandey are now behind bars and cases have been filed against them.

Read Also: No End to 'Tamas' (Darkness) Around?

Or one can support Yashwant Shinde, who applied to appear as a witness in the district court in the 2006 Nanded bombing case, in which members of Hindutva outfits were allegedly involved. Shinde claimed he was trained for covert operations linked with a larger conspiracy to plant bombs across India. In 2003 and 2004, he alleged, the same group he trained with were behind bombed mosques in Maharashtra’s Jalna, Purna, and Parbhani towns.

It was the early 1970s when Bhisham Sahni, the legendary Hindi writer, had penned the novel Tamas. It looks at the Hindu-Muslim riots in India in the backdrop of the Partition. Its central character is Nathu, who is a Dalit and does the work of removing hides from dead animals. A local politician persuades Nathu to kill a pig; the act is later used to foment a riot in the city.

It has been more than 50 years since the novel was written, but it resonates with today’s India, as it throws light on the 'fault lines' of Indian society and shows the ease with which these can be weaponised.

As we go to the press, reports have appeared in a section of the media that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has urged a special court in Mumbai to impose the maximum punishment, including death penalty under Section 16 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), on all seven accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case. This marks a dramatic reversal from the agency’s earlier position regarding BJP leader and former MP Pragya Singh Thakur and other defendants.

Whether justice will finally be served to them or not is a million-dollar question, but the fact that NIA is of the opinion of a stringent punishment to these perpetrators is a good thing.

Perhaps, it is a warning sign to all such perpetrators who are keen to foment communal disturbances in the country and cause irreversible damage to the secular fabric of the country.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/10/hinduism-is-fascism.html

 

Pahalgam Terror Attack: ‘Targeted’ Strike by India in Pakistan, PoK

Newsclick Report | 07 May 2025

• 
  
• 
  

Country prepares for nationwide ‘civil defence drill’ post Operation Sindoor, Pakistan violates ceasefire, killing civilians in Kashmir.

New Delhi: As India gets set to launch a countrywide “civil defence drill”, tension has escalated between the two neighbours. Following the late night ‘Operation Sindoor’ launched by Indian forces striking nine terrorist locations in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir or PoK, the neighbouring country claimed counter-attacks, leaving seven people dead in Kashmir and close to 40 injured, as per reports citing PTI.

A report by NDTV, however, claimed that India had killed “70 terrorists in 24 missile strikes”, though there was no official confirmation of this.

At a press briefing in New Delhi, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, along with Colonel Sophia Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, said the operation was a "measured and proportionate" response to the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, NDTV said.

The action by Indian forces came after 27 tourists were gunned down in a terror attack in the picturesque Pahalgam of Kashmir about two weeks ago.

According to an Indian Army release, the late-night actions were “focussed, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India had demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of target and method of execution”.

Various agency reports said multiple explosions were heard in Pakistan and PoK.

Meanwhile, reports citing PTI on Wednesday said, seven persons were killed and close to 40 injured after Pakistan shelled Indian villages on the border along the Line of Control in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). The Union Territory, now under Central control, has shut down the Jammu and Srinagar airports, as well as some educational institutions.

According to a report in The Wire from Kashmir, the worst hit are villages in Kupwara, Baramulla, Poonch  and Bandipura, where there were instances of ceasefire violations and massive damage of houses.

Air India has cancelled flights to and from nine airports till May 10, a PTI report said.

“Air India flights to and from the following stations, Jammu, Srinagar, Leh, Jodhpur, Amritsar, Bhuj, Jamnagar, Chandigarh, and Rajkot, are being cancelled till 0529 hrs IST on 10 May following a notification from aviation authorities on the closure of these airports," the airline said, as per the report.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who has been facing questions from tourists and Opposition over “security and intelligence” lapses that led to the terror attack, on Wednesday asked all paramilitary forces to call back personnel from leave in the wake of strikes by Pakistan, PTI said citing sources.

J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, commenting on Pakistan’s attacks, said it had "gone out of its way" to target civilian population in the Union Territory, even as “India had gone out of its way to ensure that no military and civilian targets were hit in the strikes.”

"As reports are coming, Pakistan has gone out of its way to target the civilian population. So I have taken stock of the situation and we are dealing with the situation as it develops," Abdullah told PTI Videos after chairing a review meeting in Srinagar.

World Reactions

Calling for “maximum military restraint”, a statement from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said:

"The Secretary-General is very concerned about the Indian military operations across the Line of Control and international border. He calls for maximum military restraint from both countries. The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan."

US President Donald Trump said he hoped that (escalation) “it ends very quickly.”

When asked about the strikes at a press conference, Trump in a remark seemingly referring to India and Pakistan, said, “"It's a shame. Just heard about it. I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past. They've been fighting for a long time. They've been fighting for many, many decades. I hope it ends very quickly.", as reported by Reuters.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said both the countries should “work towards a peaceful resolution.”

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson called upon both sides to “exercising restraint” in the larger interest of “peace and stability”.

 As per Reuters, he said:  

"China finds India's military operation early this morning regrettable. We are concerned about the ongoing situation. We urge both sides to act in the larger interest of peace and stability, remain calm, exercise restraint and refrain from taking actions that may further complicate the situation."

Backing India's “right for self-defence”, Israel’s Ambassador to India, Reuvan Azar, posted on X: “Israel supports India’s right for self defense. Terrorists should know there’s no place to hide from their heinous crimes against the innocent.”

Unsung icons of peace

Muhammad Amir Rana 

Published May 4, 2025
DAWN

  

The writer is a security analyst.


SPEAKING of peace in a heated environment requires courage; standing with the vulnerable is an act of moral clarity.

But to remain composed and committed to justice amid hostility is an extraordinary feat, one that only a few can sustain in Pakistan’s increasingly polarised society.

Pakistan has, from time to time, produced individuals who quietly defy the dominant currents of fear and division. They stand as sentinels of sanity, choosing principles over populism. One such figure emerged from Umerkot, a border district in Sindh that rarely escapes headlines due to its fragile interfaith fabric, rising Hindu-Muslim tensions, and growing anxieties over forced conversions.

Here, where Hindus constitute a significant portion of the population, and communal suspicion often simmers just beneath the surface, the potential for conflict is real and recurring.


In February 2012, the town stood on the edge of such a rupture. A property dispute between Muslim shopkeepers from the Arain community and the custodians of the centuries-old Aakharo Temple spiralled into violence. A viral SMS incited local Muslims to mobilise after Friday prayers, and within hours, fear had gripped the city. Two Hindu men were injured, arrests were made, and the area shut down in anticipation of further unrest.

In that moment of chaos, a voice of restraint emerged: Maulana Abdul Rehman Jamali, a Deobandi scholar and local imam affiliated with the JUI. His sermon from the mosque’s pulpit cut through the noise.

“This is not a religious issue,” he declared, “it is a property dispute — and exploiting it can have grave consequences.” He urged the Hindu community to keep their shops open and cautioned Muslims against mobilising around false grievances. His intervention, grounded in Islamic ethics and civic responsibility, likely averted a larger crisis.

Maulana Jamali’s life was marked by quiet but firm resistance to extremism. Though rooted in the religious mainstream, he was never a sectarian. During the height of Shia-Sunni tensions in the neighbouring districts, he consistently called for unity and warned against the politics of hate. He was also a vocal proponent of Jinnah’s inclusive vision of Pakistan, often reminding congregants that the state’s promise was one of equality, not religious dominance.


Civil society must rediscover its moral anchors — figures who inspire and connect with people.

His symbolic gestures were as profound as his sermons. In one gathering, he drank from the leftover water of a low-caste Hindu, publicly rejecting caste discrimination and affirming the dignity of all human beings. When he died at 85, Umerkot mourned him as a rare bridge between communities. His funeral drew both Muslim and Hindu leaders, and temples held special prayers in his memory, a scene that testified to the legacy of a man who chose peace when it was neither easy nor popular.

The residents of Umerkot also remember another notable figure — Mama Dar Badar, who had no permanent home. He was a poet, artist, and left-leaning activist who earned profound respect across all communities. While he was alive, his influence often prevented confrontations between groups.

Even today, the city recalls such icons of peace, and many believe that if figures like Maulana Jamali or Mama Dar Badar were still around, tragedies like the death of Dr Shahnawaz Kunbhar might have been averted.


Dr Kunbhar, accused of blasphemy, was killed last year in a staged encounter allegedly orchestrated by the police. The absence of peace-building figures like Jamali and Badar has created an opening for extremists to stoke tensions. An official inquiry report mentions these elements, along with a number of police officials, in the extrajudicial killing of Dr Kunbhar.

Though these extremists lack significant power, the people of Umerkot fear that unchecked activities could further escalate tensions. The city longs for voices of unity and reason to counter divisive forces, although civil society in Sindh raised its voice against the killing of Dr Kunbhar. To a large extent, society overall is losing its strength to stand up against this strand of extremism.

The mobilisations by civil society in Sindh, started after the extrajudicial killing of Dr Kunbhar, are encouraging, echoing earlier sparks of resistance — such as the outcry following Mashal Khan’s lynching in Mardan in April 2017. At that time, civil society in KP did raise its voice, but the moral clarity was soon overwhelmed. Powerful religious parties shielded the perpetrators, and the judicial process turned them into heroes rather than criminals. The courts eventually set many of them free.

This pattern is not accidental. In many regions, some extremist elements are seen to have entrenched themselves within the legal and law enforcement systems. The lower judiciary and segments of the lawyers’ community often appear to offer legal and moral cover to the accused, aligning with hard-line religious outfits and local business interests.

Meanwhile, some in the police are reported to treat blasphemy allegations as tools for personal gain and basking in the rewards granted by religious zealots: cash, land, and public praise.

Civil society must rediscover its moral anchors in this bleak environment: figures who inspire and connect with ordinary people. Offering resistance in moments of crisis is no longer enough. A longer, deeper narrative must be constructed, rooted in local wisdom and humane values.

Figures like Maulana Abdul Rehman Jamali and Mama Dar Badar provide such inspiration. Though not well recognised nationally, local communities honour them as heroes. Indeed, there would be other examples across the country of individuals who stood firm against hate, refused to align with sectarian pressures and built legacies of coexistence through quiet, local acts of defiance.

Remembering them is not nostalgia. It is an act of resistance, a reminder that justice, peace, and empathy are still possible in Pakistan and that true heroes often act without applause but leave behind a blueprint for courage.


Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2025

Israel unleashed

DAWN
Editorial 

Published May 7, 2025 

ISRAEL’S rogue behaviour — attacking the Arab population in the occupied Palestinian territories as well as its neighbours and other states — presents a major challenge to global peace. Unless the Zionist state is confronted by the international community, its destabilising activities will further push the Middle East into a cycle of bloodshed. 

On Monday, the Israeli cabinet decided to ‘conquer’ Gaza and push its beleaguered people to the south “for their protection”. Tel Aviv has now clearly stated what many had already known: that it seeks to reoccupy Gaza and exterminate or ethnically cleanse its Palestinian residents. Elsewhere, Tel Aviv has attacked Lebanon, Yemen and Syria. On Monday and Tuesday, Israeli warplanes bombed Yemen in apparent retaliation for the Houthi attack on Tel Aviv airport a day before. The pro-Iran Houthis say they are targeting Israel in solidarity with Palestine, and that they will cease operations against the Zionist state if the bloodbath in Gaza stops. The fresh aggression against Yemen comes in the wake of several deadly American strikes targeting the impoverished Arab state. In Syria, Israel claims to be intervening to ‘protect’ that country’s Druze community after recent sectarian clashes claimed around 100 lives. While sectarian violence in Syria is indeed a matter of concern, Israel has no right to interfere; apart from violating Syria’s sovereignty, nobody should be fooled by Israel’s crocodile tears for Syria’s Druze population.

Nearly all the Middle East’s interconnected crises have one common denominator: Israel. Apart from the aforementioned activities, the Iranian foreign minister has said Tel Aviv is trying to drag the US into a Middle East “disaster”. While America can hardly be counted on to rein in Israel, other major world powers — and the larger global community — should take punitive measures against Tel Aviv until it stops its bloodthirsty forays. Appeasing Israel and ignoring its deadly rampages may well set the stage for a regional conflagration of immense proportions.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2025